The Directors of Marlborough Fine Art are delighted to announce their forthcoming exhibition of new work by Bill Jacklin opening in London on 5 June.

The artist writes: “My paintings have to have a sense of place. The subjects invariably are locations that I have made drawings of whether it is the pulsating energy of the crowds in Times Square or the rhythmic and repetitive movement of the figures and their shadows diving into the waves in Coney Island or Cape Cod.

Almost all my paintings have become concerned with the passing of time and my place in it. I respond to the sea and the stars at night, the illuminations over the Great Lawn in Central Park and the road with shadows with birds flying above me. I have watched the skaters at the Wollman Rink forming patterns with their silhouettes and shadows against the ice and I have seen the clouds passing over me with their shapes against the sun. The seemingly fast track of the seasons is almost cinematic as the sunbathers relaxing in the park suddenly are bent against the wind and snow as they cross the street in New York City.”

New York City has inspired Jacklin since his arrival there in 1985. His work has explored much of New York including Grand Central Station, Roseland Ballroom, and Coney Island, among others. In the majority of Jacklin’s paintings, emphasis is on the essence of place, on the sensation of being in an environment rather than on the topography and details of the setting itself. In this exhibition, the multiple renderings of specific locations, such as Times Square, Little Italy, and the Rockefeller Center skating rink, allow the viewer to revisit these spaces. Yet placing these scenes in time is nearly impossible, as if it is only the memory of the location that is actually being depicted. The recognizability of the settings without specific details is apparent in the triptych ‘Hot Legs, Times Square, NYC, 2011.’

In her essay for the New York exhibition 2012 Margaret Priest writes of Jacklin '…while remaining quintessentially English, he has distilled all that is quintessentially New York and placed it on canvas. Rather than capturing a likeness, he conjures a feeling. Jacklin’s capacity to express the essence of the city distinguishes him from those artists who document street life. His is not documentary practice. He is not an artist who catalogues his surroundings. Jacklin is an existential artist insistently affirming his place in the world through his urgent and emotive marking of where he is, what he sees and how he feels.'

A fully illustrated catalogue will be published with an introduction by Ihor Holubiszky, Senior Curator at the Museum of Art at McMaster University, Ontario.